Various PvP Changes in Patch 4.5

Hello fellow PvP aficionados :cool:

There have been a couple changes to all PvP modes in Patch 4.5 as you must have seen!

Today in the latest Adrenaline Rush TV, Moriguchi gave a couple details about some of the changes to the Feast, Rival Wings and Frontlines, so let me share them with you!

General

PvP Actions Adjustments
As a major change, all healing potency reduction effects now also affect healing abilities. In accordance with this change, the "Increased healing potency" trait affect abilities as well.

We have also decided to buff both Ninjas and Scholars as we found they were harder to win with.

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The Feast

Graphical adjustments to the Crystal Tower Training Grounds
It could sometimes be confusing to remember which side to fall back to due to the pace of a Feast game. By adding some graphical details, we made it easier to see which side is which.

About the Focus Attack countdown icon
Based on feedback coming from players from the NA and EU regions mainly, we have added the Focus attack icon to the Enemy’s party list. Note that this is invisible for the opposing team.

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Frontlines

Due to the +15% damage increase of tanks and Melee DPS, the HP for objects (Drones, Nodes, Icebound tomelith) have been increased. Drones were already quite easy to kill, so we have increased their HP even a bit more.

Due to this damage increase, the magic damage reduction effect for icebound tomelith has been removed.

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Rival Wings

Magitek Field and damage to the core
To counter respawn kills, a Magitek Field has been implemented so that enemy players cannot enter the base area until one tower has been destroyed.

Additionally, the Core can now be damaged after destroying just one tower. Although the damage throughput is low, this enables a different strategy for victory.

In accordance to this change, the remaining HP of the Tower are now prioritized over the remaining number of Towers as a victory condition.

Adjustments to Soaring
Soaring does not wear off even after a K.O. anymore, so the match tempo is faster towards the end. This was adjusted so that the importance of infantry wouldl increase as the match progresses.

The effects of Soaring now stack up to 20 (2% increase per 1 stack). After 20 stacks the buff will change to "Flying High", which is a 50% damage increase. This is much stronger than the former "Soaring" effect. However please note this does not affect the damage done by machina.

Mammets and Machina
The magic reduction effect has been removed for mammets and machina now that tanks and melee DPS deal +10% more damage.

Machina HP have been increased too, in order to meet the damage output increase of tanks and melee DPS.

However, due to the increased ease to summon Brute Justice (from twice to indefinitely), Brute Justice's HP have been reduced.

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Phew, and that's it!

We hope you're all excited for the Hidden Gorge coming with Patch 4.55, and for the European FRC finals at the Fan Festival in Paris coming on the 3rd of February! Cause we sure as hell are.

As usual, if you have any feedback about PvP, please keep sharing it with us here! ;)

At which point do you share feedback on previous changes? I feel this is the largest gap in communication. We give you feedback but we don't get a response to it, which raises the question of why bother?

Glad SCH and NIN have been reassessed, these are good changes, but neither are still nearly competitive enough. That isn't largely a problem with SCH, it's because WHM Lilies CDR is just too strong.

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Originally Posted by BloodRubyXII

At which point do you share feedback on previous changes? I feel this is the largest gap in communication. We give you feedback but we don't get a response to it, which raises the question of why bother?

Glad SCH and NIN have been reassessed, these are good changes, but neither are still nearly competitive enough. That isn't largely a problem with SCH, it's because WHM Lilies CDR is just too strong.

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Oh woo, cool yourself down.
This is one of the rare adjustment patch for the Frontline and Rival Wing.
The issue about MCH/BRD OP every other job is being there since 4.0 and just got adjusted now.
You will get your Feast related adjustment late.
This patch already showing the Dev team is willing to have separate adjustment for Feast and Forntline/Rivial Wing, this is a good start.

Most of us right are just seeing if 5.0 gives us a new mode right now, not expecting anything big (aside from continuous balance changes after FRC.)

As always I am just going to ask that the boosted and rmt acts see something happen to them, they're still there, it still happens, it dissuades people from playing and it gives us a bit of flack

Also, the top 100 rewards we've been getting recently are great, people meme but they've been really good, kudos to the art team and all who designed them.

Secondly, just because it annoys me and I don't want the hundreds of other pvpers being screwed over, I think there should be a splash of cheap wolf collar rewards in the future, but under a new currency, not wolf collars, because that gives poeple like sotek with 90 of the things a head start, but whatever decision is made, don't make top 100 exclusive rewards, none top 100 exclusive. They were earned and competed for, that shouldn't be undermined.

The Rival Wings discord will be playing tomorrow as of this post. It will be a lot experimenting with the new big balance changes.

Please don't remove Astragalos completely. Bring it back later when Hidden Gorge has had its time in the spotlight. Put both maps in a rotation system like Frontline.

Thank you.

Ninja buffs about time id say the class has been bad since season 1 :)

Can we have chat back in 5.0?

Greetings,

We recently confirmed an issue where the recast time of additional skills were resetting upon revival in the Feast.

This is scheduled to be addressed before the upcoming European Feast Regional Championship 2018, which is scheduled to take place at the Fan Festival 2019 in Paris.

Good luck to all those participating in Season 12, and we hope you tune in and join us for the FRC Europe finals early next month!

Good day everyone,

A couple more adjustments have been made to some jobs in PvP when we introduced Patch 4.55 and Moriguchi just explained them in the latest Adrenaline Rush TV - let me share them with you now!

Tanks
Attachment 6347
With respect to the win-rate/power balance between the three jobs, we are now convinced that it is safe to have all three tanks with the same HP. As such, paladins' HP have been increased from 14,500 to 15,000, and Warriors' HP have been reduced from 15,500 to 15,000.
Tanks were the only role that had a HP difference between jobs but they now go under the same rule as the other roles.

Healers
Attachment 6348
Considering the balance between the three healer jobs, the recast time for some actions has been adjusted for scholars and astrologians.
Shortening the recast time for Eye for an Eye will make fast burst attacks more manageable in the current meta, while shortening the recast time for Lightspeed will allow more self-defense and higher MP efficiency.

Monk
Attachment 6349
We have buffed monk with respect to the power balance with other melee jobs. By shortening the recast time for Riddle of Fire and Earth, they have become much more convenient both from offensive and defensive perspectives.
Although monks still have a hard time in terms of mobility when falling back, we feel these buffs are sufficient as a counter-measure.

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And that's it! :cool:

With the Feast (ranked) being on preseason until the start of Season 13 coming with Patch 4.57, we feel now is a great time to try out these adjustments! :D Let us know what you think of them, and of any other feedback you may have - as usual!

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If you're a new player and would like to try the Feast, now is also a good time! Training games are happening every day especially during evenings so don't be afraid to jump in the queue! While veterans are playing, don't get discouraged if you lose games quickly. They will be happy to provide advice and the atmosphere is very relaxed as rankings are not affected.

This is the perfect time to learn while having fun! ;)

Thank you so much for the constant pvp changes (Also thank you so much for letting u know the reasoning for the changes from AdrenTV!!!!).

Self Survival has been a major issue for astrologians for the past maybe 2 seasons, This has mainly due to the fact AST has very poor mitigation. The increase in Melee Limit Break, Removal of needing to put up a Combo to buff its damage, and increase in melee DPS output and potency is the major reason why White Mage has risen in popuarlity compared to SCH and AST. White Mage has Protect, Divine Benison, and even Fluid Aura which help it mitigate damage and keep its healing from falling too far behind against the onslaught of constant burst.
In the current game mode victories are secured mostly by Limit Breaks and even with the above change to lightspeed ast has no defense against this.

1. Bole: Bole only mitigates 10% DMG and there is only a one in 4 chance of getting it. Sadly bole is our only way of directly defending against Limit Break and 10% really isnt enough especially when comparing it to white mages 25% protect. Which mitigates a lot more damage.

2. Disable: Disable reduces a selected enemies attacks by 20%. However, Disable does not effect Limit Break Damage at all (and it only last 5 seconds).

Possible Solutions:
1. During an old patch disable was reduced from 6s to 5s, could this be reverted back? Also, I feel if Disable also effected Limit Break it would bring it up to white mages level.
2. Adding a temporary buff defense boost to Synastry similar to how Monomachy works for Red Mage, but only effecting the Synastry target. The Defense boost should probably not go over 5% as well. Bole + 5% defense boost from Synastry would Compliment well against the increased burst dmg melee DPS revived.

I really hope 5.0 gets a complete PvP redo, something closer to PVE (and 3.0) because when I see that you still cant' figure out how to balance jobs (and yet the simplification of PVP was supposed to make it easier to do adjustments on a more regular basis than in 3.0) I'm really left wondering why you even bothered changing PVP in the first place. You've been presented with evidence from various players of different jobs glaring strengths and weaknesses, multiple times, but most of the fixes feel disconnected from the feedback, to the point these forums are slowly dieing because no one is taking PVP seriously anymore. It's still nearly impossible to top the rankings as ranged dps, it's still mostly dominated by healers, which are unbalanced compared to one another, some dps are in need of crowd control abilities, or change to their mechanics (MNK) to be brought to the level of DRG and SAM...

In retrospect, although it was (is?) mostly an issue on NA servers, Frontlines have also lost any sense of the fun they had in 3.0, thanks to both the atrocious new gameplay, and the introduction of XP rewards which turned it into bot infested matches. RW is nowhere as fun or enduring as the previous PVP modes, including Shatter, which was already a step in the wrong direction with PVE elements being the most important factor to victory.

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Originally Posted by Akimitsu

I really hope 5.0 gets a complete PvP redo, something closer to PVE (and 3.0) because when I see that you still cant' figure out how to balance jobs (and yet the simplification of PVP was supposed to make it easier to do adjustments on a more regular basis than in 3.0) I'm really left wondering why you even bothered changing PVP in the first place. You've been presented with evidence from various players of different jobs glaring strengths and weaknesses, multiple times, but most of the fixes feel disconnected from the feedback, to the point these forums are slowly dieing because no one is taking PVP seriously anymore. It's still nearly impossible to top the rankings as ranged dps, it's still mostly dominated by healers, which are unbalanced compared to one another, some dps are in need of crowd control abilities, or change to their mechanics (MNK) to be brought to the level of DRG and SAM...


In retrospect, although it was (is?) mostly an issue on NA servers, Frontlines have also lost any sense of the fun they had in 3.0, thanks to both the atrocious new gameplay, and the introduction of XP rewards which turned it into bot infested matches. RW is nowhere as fun or enduring as the previous PVP modes, including Shatter, which was already a step in the wrong direction with PVE elements being the most important factor to victory.

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QFT /tencharz

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Originally Posted by Akimitsu

I really hope 5.0 gets a complete PvP
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The main reason why healer always on top of the ranking has nothing to do with job balance. It is more issue of overall Feast population size is too small and pupultion of the healer simply allowing them to have more game time. For example, Dps que time is 20 mins but healer is either instant or under 5 mins.

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Originally Posted by Akimitsu

I really hope 5.0 gets a complete PvP redo, something closer to PVE (and 3.0).

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I'd rather they just add more skills per class over time and steadily build up a job design system intended for PvP, using 4.0 as a foundation.

If the issue is about the number of actions available, I support more for 5.0. However, I don't understand why we have to go back to having the PvE job design cut and pasted into PvP to get more abilities. This isn't a game like WoW or ESO that launched with PvP. Unlike those games, the job design was not built from the ground up to support both PvP and PvE simultaneously. 2.0-3.0 PvP jobs have always been rigid, PvE-centric designs copy-pasted into a PvP setting.

For example, does AST need aoe Balance in PvP and instant shields and light speed and aoe shields and the same healing potencies as a WHM like we saw during 3.0's healer balance? Meanwhile, 3.0 WHM had no party buffs, slow heals and no shield because Divine Benison didn't exist and protect didn't work the way it does in PvP now. Sleep gimmicks was your only tool, but BLM did that better and CC got nerfed to boot.

From 3.0, the entire healer kits would have to be modified to balance things, whereas the difference in strength between 4.0 AST and WHM is a simple limit break mitigation option. That's literally it. Outside of the coordinated LB threat, i'm not even sure that WHM beats AST. The reason the players can so easily articulate the issues in job balance on the forums is that it's usually not a laundry list of issues, it's typically one or two issues that aren't hard to identify.

The tanks are all relatively well balanced now, ranged are well balanced with the exception of, maybe, Summoner? After the recent Ninja buffs, I'd say only MNK needs significant attention for melee. Despite that, a Monk main was still #1 on one of the data centers last season. For healers, SCH and to a much lesser degree, AST needs work. To my knowledge, that's about it. There is no huge balance crisis. I dare say, despite it's issues, PvP is about as balanced as it's ever been?

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Originally Posted by Divinemights

The main reason why healer always on top of the ranking has nothing to do with job balance.

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You're right, but it's not even job balance. Roles aren't jobs. It's role carry potential combined with shorter queue times for different roles. Healers and Melee DPS have higher carry potential combined with shorter queue times. (Because they're more stressful to play, less people try to queue up as them). Tanks and Ranged DPS have slightly lower carry potential and longer queue times, for Ranged DPS, much longer queue times. (Many prefer these roles because they're less stressful to play.)

Ranged DPS is more or less, a support DPS who follows the target calls made by the Melee DPS. Melee DPS generally leads in choosing when and who to burst. They generally make the plays that lead to kills, and have to deal with being focused a lot. Healer holds the entire team together by keeping everyone alive. Extremely important. It's very obvious to me why these two roles top the solo queue rankings. They have a higher burden on average and thus, a higher potential to carry.

It happens when team PvP games have asymmetrical roles. I don't ask my support teammate in LoL why he isn't carrying the team to victory. This is really a non-issue that can't be "fixed" without watering down and streamlining the role identity in some way. People can always learn multiple roles or play team ranked instead because I'm not sure how SE could go about making a Bard only player have the same carry potential as the healer.

The point of my comment was that SE is slow to fix anything, yet being able to fix issues and balance jobs was listed as a key reason to the simplification of PvP. One would be right to say that as it is, aside from SMN, MNK and SCH, jobs/roles are rather balanced in their respective categories right now. Well, awesome! That only took a year! With 9 abilities per job! And yet 3 of them are still in a bad spot. At the end of 3.0 things were more or less balanced, or at least, aside from 3 jobs (SCH/BRD/NIN), they all had solo carry potential. I'm not advocating for a straight return of 3.0 PVP, far from it, some aspects of 4.0 PVP are good, but in general it's a lot less fun, it's still taking the same amount of time to get fixes and it's more confusing than anything else for a newcomer to suddenly have to play a job in a different way.
Let's not bring up last season as proof of anything, the participation rate must have been the lowest it's ever been on most DCs.

Of course adding abilities would be ideal, but if they do that, how long is it gonna take them to do the fixes....? PvP is certainly a niche thing (although, with the original 3-4 FL modes it definitely wasn't so niche, and enjoyed by most), so allocating ressources to work on something that not many are playing is not a high priority, but they kinda killed it themselves... And if it was never a high priority, again, why did they rework it entirely? People at the end of 3.0 were asking for balance, so why not just keep doing what they were doing so far? A year later, we have a boring, stressful (Feast), and STILL unbalanced mode.

My hope is that they'd nail the balance as much as possible and then use the balanced 4.0 builds as a base template to graft extra skills onto. They'd have less work because they wouldn't be starting from scratch or building from the new PvE balance that comes when they restructure the jobs every expansion. PvP would be evolving from it's own format rather than just adapting the new 5.0 PvE adjustments into PvP.

Black Mage has 14 abilities in PvP and 26 in PvE, not including the universal PvP or Role actions. My Blizzard IV key automatically changes into Fire IV when I go into Astral fire, but that doesn't mean they aren't separate abilities from a balance perspective.

PvP was certainly niche in 3.0. Outside of the Garo event at the very end of HW, the PvP queue times were actually longer for the majority of the 3.X cycle.